2 steps forward, 2 steps back

It's been a weird sort of week. We've made the decision to put the house on the market and honestly, I'm ok with it.

It's our first home, and I admit I had images of teenagers hanging out in what used to be the room I nursed them in as a baby. I pictured Marcus and I growing old in this place sipping coffee under the shade of trees we planted.

But behind those little daydreams lay the reality that this house isn't going to fit us forever. There is just no way, even in daydreams that I can picture Oliver and Nathan as teenagers been ok about sharing a room and bunk beds. So that been the reality we will move and right now the timing seems right. We are praying for a quick sell because the idea of open homes stresses me out, but we also know through friend's experiences that sometimes a house takes many a moon to sell so we are trying not to plan too far ahead.

Marcus has been doing so well. He's enjoyed hitting the ski mountain once a week with a friend. Leaving home at 5am and getting back 12 hours later, a brilliant day skiing under his belt. He has been using the sleep out as a study and using his mornings to work through 1 of 3 papers left on his post grad diploma in business management. He is the first to admit that everything takes him so much longer, that  his mind is working a lot slower than normal, but he is getting through the readings and getting the work done and with that comes a sense of accomplishment.

 I have got very used to having him around. In fact, I'm not sure just I would have coped this year without him been here. I joke that God gave him this trial in order that I would have extra help at home with 3 children. I joke, but in all seriousness, I do think had life carried on as before I would be the one suffering the nervous breakdown.

 With all this reflecting, I have noticed that I don't cope as well as I used to at keeping plates spinning. I have to limit myself, my days to manageable bites. The high blood pressure I suffered in pregnancy with Nathan took me by surprise as I always felt I could maintain  a calm composure even if frantically treading water beneath the waves. Since Nathan's birth, I am more aware of the risk of drowning I guess, so know the warning signs and reach for the life belt before my head goes under.

This week that life belt has shown itself in a number of ways- a sleep in on Saturday, not getting out of my dressing gown till midday, taking up on offers of dinner out, staying close to home despite the kid's requests for outings, panadol and early nights, the grandparents taking the eldest two for most of Sunday and this morning calling on a friend and my amazing mother in law to help get the kids to school and kindy as I was due to relieve at a local primary school.

You see, today has been a day that Marcus would rather forget. After more than 2 weeks of him feeling really good, having no anxiety and lots of energy he went to bed last night and tossed and turned until 2am. He eventually gave in and took one of those pills that knock him out. He hates these pills and proberly the reason he has been feeling so good these last few weeks is because he has been  able to sleep without them.  They stay in his system for a good 10 hours so when I heard him take them at 1.30am I knew the morning was going to be a shocker.

 I should have really rung the school and let them know that I couldn't make it but I hate letting people down and I knew we needed the money. So here I was, up at 5am, getting everyone organised, QUIETLY so that Marcus could sleep. (I needn't have worried, he was out to it). I arranged to drop Lucy off at a friends house so that she could get a ride into school with them and then I phoned Raeanne and asked her to pop in on Marcus this morning and breathed a sigh of relief when she offered to take Olli into Kindy.

I felt a terrible terrible mother walking out the door this morning at 8am. Nathan had gone back down for his morning nap and I had left Oliver on the couch watching a movie, his kindy bag all packed while he waited for Nan to pick him up.  Marcus was technically home but asleep in the bedroom and I knew that under the influence of those sleeping pills that the house could literally burn down around him and he wouldn't wake.

Thankfully, there was no house fire. Olli did tuck into his lunch box while watching his movie and had polished off all his lunch for kindy by the time Nan arrived at 9am.  Being the amazing lady that she is, she made him up another lunch then trucked him off to Kindy.  Nathan I'm told slept a record 2 hours for his morning nap and woke Marcus at 10am. Marcus by this time was able to rise and take care of him, the drugs wearing off but his anxiety was still there. Lucky for us, Nathan is good for his anxiety. His toothy smile is good for the soul and lucky for us he smiles a lot.

This is all very long winded, but I wanted to record that on this road to recovery there are set backs. On the whole Marcus is doing awesome but days like this bring home just how bad it can get. I'm thankful that when I dropped the plates this weekend with this headache that Marcus was on form and able to carry on spinning.  Thankful also that my headache had disappeared this morning in time to take the plates back from Marcus. Thankful too for those life rings (you know who you are)  that keep us afloat and enable us to keep the plates spinning.